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All free summaries — page 845
42,801 public-domain books, summarised. Page 845 of 892.
Mousey
Eleanora H. Stooke
When a quiet orphan is sent to live with her miserly relative, her gentle presence slowly transforms a cold household into a place of unexpected grace.
No Surrender
E. Werner
A stern autocrat rules his province with an iron hand until an idealistic ward, a long-buried betrayal, and a rising political movement force him to choose between total power and the woman who softens his hardened heart.
Notes and Queries, Number 11, January 12, 1850
Various
A Victorian intellectual parlor in print, this journal serves as a collaborative clearinghouse where curious minds trade historical minutiae, literary mysteries, and folklore. It represents the nascent age of crowdsourced knowledge, where a query in one corner of the empire meets a scholarly response from another.
On Christmas Day in the Morning
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
The loneliness of elderly parents left behind during the holidays sparks a secret, midnight mission to restore the warmth of a full house. This quiet, sentimental story captures the restorative power of keeping family traditions alive.
On Singing and Music
Society of Friends
True worship, according to the Quaker tradition, requires absolute stillness of the heart and mind. This text explores the spiritual dangers of relying on external performances, such as music or song, to reach the Divine.
Passage to anywhere
Merwin, Sam, Jr.
When an exhausted scientific director learns that an erratic genius has invented an instantaneous matter-transmitter, political titans and economic rivals scramble to suppress a discovery that threatens to shatter global stability.
Phebe, Her Profession: A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book
Anna Chapin Ray
The challenges of young adulthood and the pull of family ties define this warm, observant narrative. It explores how independence and duty shape the lives of a spirited, interconnected group of relatives.
Pirate Gold
Frederic Jesup Stimson
A dark canvas bag of unclaimed gold pieces, handed over by a captured pirate on a Boston wharf, shapes the quiet destiny of a devoted bank clerk and the orphan child he swears to protect.
Poppy's Presents
Walton, O. F., Mrs.
A young girl's life changes overnight when twin brothers arrive as a surprise, testing her faith and resilience through loss, trial, and restoration.
Problem in solid
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
A three-dimensional photography inventor and a corrupt movie star collide in a brilliant murder trial where a man shoots his own duplicate and exploits the law of double jeopardy.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-06-30
Various
This collection captures the fraying edges of post-Great War Britain, blending biting political satire with the absurdities of daily life in a world struggling to find its footing after catastrophe.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920
Various
This collection captures the frantic, witty, and weary pulse of London in the spring of 1920. It serves as an essential historical artifact, blending sharp political satire with the mundane frustrations of post-war life, from coal shortages to the bizarre inventions of the day.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, June 13, 1891
Various
Late-Victorian London comes alive not through grand historical narrative, but through the chatter of music-hall audiences, the anxiety of aspiring politicians, and the quiet absurdities of everyday life.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, September 12, 1917
Various
A satirical dispatch from wartime London captures a society navigating existential conflict with absurd bureaucracy, stiff upper lips, and domestic eccentricity.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 04, April 23, 1870
Various
This periodical offers a sharp, satirical snapshot of American life in 1870, blending biting commentary on politics, theater, and social trends with the earnest commercial advertisements of its era.
Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870
Various
Packed with Gilded Age satire, broad caricatures, and theatrical skits, this period humor magazine captures the irreverent spirit, political anxieties, and popular culture of late nineteenth-century urban America.
Rabbi Saunderson
Ian Maclaren
The life of a scholar-cleric unfolds as a testament to the conflict between rigid theological certainty and the boundless, often inconvenient, demands of human compassion. This portrait of a man out of time explores the heavy toll taken by a conscience that refuses to compromise.
Scott Burton and the Timber Thieves
Edward G. (Edward Gheen) Cheyney
The quiet, sun-drenched Florida coast masks a dangerous criminal enterprise, and it falls to a young Forest Service officer to uncover the truth hidden deep within the swamp.
Shandy
Ron Goulart
The arrival of a persistent suitor on a distant colony planet becomes complicated by the presence of a shapeshifting pet whose origins are as fluid as his physical form.
Sight Gag
Laurence M. Janifer
The hunter becomes the hunted when a man armed with sophisticated anti-psychic technology confronts a telepath who has been stripped of all conventional weapons, leaving only the power of his own mind to survive.
Six little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's
Laura Lee Hope
The six young Bunker siblings trade their familiar life in Pineville for a rugged, adventurous journey to a Western ranch. Through accidental separations, rescues, and cinematic drama, they discover that home is wherever the family stays together.
Slavery in Maryland briefly considered
John L. Carey
An 1845 treatise examines slavery in Maryland through social philosophy and census data, arguing that the institution functions as a temporary tutelage destined to end.
Slay-Ride
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
This story is a claustrophobic descent into madness, where a cold-blooded assassin finds his carefully laid plans unraveling inside the very suit meant to protect him from the void.
So Many Worlds Away
Dwight V. Swain
Raymond Horning steps across the threshold of dimensions not to conquer the unknown, but to escape the suffocating reality of an unhappy marriage, only to discover that every alternate life shares his inescapable burden.
Star bright
Bryce Walton
Driven by a desperate need for real love beyond artificial sensory illusions, a disillusioned worker commits murder to stow away on a moon rocket bound for Hollywood's synthetic stars.
Stepping Westward
M. E. Francis
Beneath the quiet rural rhythms of country lanes and harvest fields, ordinary lives unfold through stubborn pride, quiet reconciliations, and enduring attachments to home and memory.
Stories by American Authors, Volume 6
Various
A young man returns from state prison to his coastal town, determined to repay his debt, set his life right, and overcome the quiet suspicion of his neighbors.
Superstition unveiled
Charles Southwell
Faith is the foundation of political injustice, and a people in the fetters of superstition cannot hope to secure political freedom.
The Adventures of Seumas Beg
James Stephens
A child’s perspective is rarely captured with such clarity, balancing the wild, terrifying wonder of a growing imagination against the grounded, sometimes somber realities of early twentieth-century Dublin. This collection of poetry invites you to see the world through eyes that are just beginning to measure the…
The American Missionary
Various
This collection of reports, correspondence, and financial records captures the urgent, multifaceted efforts of post-Civil War American missionaries working to integrate newly emancipated people and marginalized groups into the church and educational life.
The attitudes of animals in motion, illustrated with the zoopraxiscope
Eadweard Muybridge
An investigation into how animals move shatters centuries of artistic tradition by capturing what human vision cannot see.
The Bible, should it be in the school room?
Franklin Steiner
The forced inclusion of religious texts in American public education remains a persistent point of friction, pitting constitutional principles against the desires of advocacy groups. This work rigorously dissects the legal and moral arguments surrounding the mandatory reading of the Bible in the classroom.
The bonfire
Francis Edward Paget
When a village bonfire celebration goes wrong, the young boys of Yateshull face the consequences of their thoughtlessness and learn the hard cost of repairing a neighbor's ruin.
The Boy Allies with the Cossacks
Clair W. (Clair Wallace) Hayes
The sky is a dangerous place, and the ground is no safer, for two young aviators caught in the vast, grinding gears of the Great War.
The Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island
Carter, Herbert, active 1909-1917
The Silver Fox Patrol of the Cranford Boy Scouts sets out on a lake voyage, only to find themselves entangled in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with local poachers on a remote island.
The Bubonic Plague
Mitra, A., active 19th century
This medical treatise provides an exhaustive overview of the bubonic plague as understood in the late nineteenth century. It serves as both a historical record of past pandemics and a practical manual for public health officials during an active outbreak.
The Cruel Murder of Mina Miller
Unknown
A man marries a woman, promises her a life abroad, and within hours leaves her dead in the woods of New Jersey. This account traces the swift, grim unraveling of a crime that shocked the immigrant communities of 1881.
The death crystal
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
Trapped in a time-displaced half-world after a mysterious crystal explosion, a dying newspaperman turns the tables on an unseen alien conspiracy targeting Earth's greatest physicists.
The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses
J. C. Manning
A poet reflects on the heavy burden of artistic ambition, the sorrow of lost love, and the moral gravity of a nation navigating its own history and identity.
The desire of the moth
Eugene Manlove Rhodes
The wanderer John Wesley Pringle, a man of shifting horizons and steady nerves, finds his quiet journey through the New Mexico Territory interrupted by a web of local political malice and a romantic entanglement. He navigates a world of lawless men and loyal friends, where the line between a hero and a scoundrel is…
The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Purgatory, Volume 2
Dante Alighieri
A living traveler mounts a steep, sacred slope where suffering transforms the human soul through discipline, memory, and grace.
The fog princes
Florence Warden
A quiet Welsh castle holds a buried hoard of ancient treasure, drawing a corrupt librarian and a group of young men into a web of greed, deception, and murder.
The Granite Monthly. Vol. II. No. 7. Apr., 1879: A New Hampshire Magazine devoted to Literature, History, and State Progress
Various
This collection of late nineteenth-century regional writing captures the civic pride, historical memory, and romantic sensibilities of a New Hampshire community. It serves as a window into the intellectual life of a state finding its modern voice.
The Happy Herd
Bryce Walton
A man returns from years of solitary space travel to find his home planet transformed into a suffocating, hyper-social collective where individuality is treated as a dangerous illness.
The high school rivals
Frank V. Webster
The high school years are a battleground of loyalties, where rivalries test character and friendship proves its worth against a backdrop of campus traditions and athletic glory.
The House of Toys
Henry Russell Miller
The pursuit of an ideal life often functions as a fragile construction, masking the deeper, more complex realities of love and personal duty.
The Impending Sword: A Novel (Vol. 1 of 3)
Edmund Yates
A man’s secret journey and the web of deception he weaves around his wife draw them into a perilous, hidden world. This narrative explores the cost of domestic secrets and the danger of trusting the wrong men.
The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 32, February 6, 1841
Various
A prosperous farmer’s prejudice against his humble, beautiful neighbor sets a rural community into a dizzying tailspin of romance, trickery, and unintended consequences. This issue of a nineteenth-century periodical captures the spirited, often humorous, and deeply moralistic tone of Irish life in 1841.